


to be human

by shuhuaflvr (vminprnt)



Category: (여자)아이들 | (G)I-DLE
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dragons, Alternate Universe - Magic, Angst, Blood, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/F, Fluff and Angst, Humor (sometimes), Hurt/Comfort, Imprisonment, Injury, Kidnapping, Mind Control, Miscommunication, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Rescue Missions, Shuhua is a dragon (kinda), Slow Burn, also some more mature scenes, and blood and injury, just trust me on this, rated mature for language
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-25
Updated: 2020-06-22
Packaged: 2021-03-02 20:14:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 13,613
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24362620
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vminprnt/pseuds/shuhuaflvr
Summary: Seo Soojin hates the dragons who terrorize her world.But when she's kidnapped by a dragon who kills its own kind, certain hidden truths are revealed... and the true monsters.
Relationships: Minor Cho Miyeon/Minnie Nicha Yontararak, Seo Soojin/Yeh Shuhua
Comments: 16
Kudos: 140





	1. Chapter One

…

Soojin hates dragons.

She abhors the creatures who continue to plague humanity, who take and _take_ without a shred of remorse. Who find pleasure in the destruction of her world and the innocent people within it. Soojin could never forgive them for everything that’s happened, for the things and people she’s lost. 

But Soojin is beginning to think she hates the desert even more.

Windswept and barren as she walks across the plains, sand whipping around her feet and into her eyes. Soojin is in a foul mood, today, and Soyeon’s voice in her earpiece only grinds against her fading patience all the more. She gives a weary, long sigh, and pushes the earpiece farther in. 

“Why do I have to do this, again? It’s demeaning.”

_“Higher up’s orders. Just get through the next few hours and it’ll be over.”_

Soyeon’s voice is staticy and hard to hear over the whistling of the wind. She’s back at the base, in the comfort of a sturdy building with air conditioning and plumbing. Two things Soojin wishes she had more than anything in that moment. 

“You’re just saying that because you’re not out here.”

If Soyeon says anything, Soojin can’t hear her. 

In Soojin’s opinion, the mission itself is an insult. She’s trained to kill dragons, not search for dead ones. She thinks she’s trained too hard and for too long to be given a mission such as this one, but she supposes it just comes with being at the bottom of the chain of command. 

A few small creatures mill about as she crosses the crest of the sandy hill, quickly scurrying away from Soojin when she approaches. She turns her earpiece back on. “What does it look like, again?”

_“The recon team said it was fairly-large, female. Reddish-brown color. They couldn’t tell the extent of the injuries from the air.”_

Soojin hums. “What do you think happened? Maybe one of ours got it.”

_“I doubt it. Recon team said it was completely torn up. Anyways, Soojin, you’re just there to evaluate the damage and get a few samples. You should be quick, because… you know.”_

She _did_ know. Fairly recently, a rogue dragon had been causing trouble in the area. Targeting cadets and those from the academy, taking out their ranks one by one. Soojin would be just another cadet to whatever creature or person was intent on targeting their institution. The east was dangerous for many reasons, and the addition of this unknown enemy had made teams scarce in this area. 

As she had walked, the sun had melted into the horizon, giving way to inky blackness only interspersed by the rare star. Soojin took but a moment to observe the galaxy before her; back home, and even at the academy, there was too much light pollution for Soojin to see the stars. Here, however, they illuminated the night. It was a small comfort. 

Ever since the Song mission, the academy had become far more careful in the way it operated. It was their greatest failure, and the biggest reminder of what they had lost. Some of their greatest cadets, sent on a mission to wipe out some of the dragon’s elite, slaughtered or worse. Soojin had learned early on in her years training at the academy that some things were worse than death. 

Song Yuqi, the academy's greatest pride, the top cadet, had been lost that mission. They hadn’t forgotten. 

The academy’s meticulous care to not repeat their mistakes apparently did not apply to those like Soojin, however. Being sent on a mission alone was dangerous enough within itself, but being sent to an area filled with threats was enough to have Soyeon telling her not to go before she departed. Soojin takes her duty very seriously, however; if she can aid in the war against the dragons in any way, she will. Even if it means doing the grunt work. 

“I know,” she absentmindedly replies, eyes scanning the horizon. 

_“Okay,”_ Soyeon says, muffled, _“we don’t know what else is out there, so be careful.”_

“Lizards,” Soojin deadpans. “And snakes. There’s definitely snakes somewhere out here.” 

_“Focus, please.”_

“It’s not my fault there’s nothing out here,” Soojin grumbles. “Everything looks the same out - oh my god.”

_“What?”_ Soyeon hisses, but Soojin is too preoccupied to hear. 

A large, scaly mass loomed over her. Soojin immediately claps her hand over her nose, the foul, putrid stench coming from the creature overpowering her senses. Her flashlight’s beam slowly scans over it, revealing wings bent into unnatural angles, torn to shreds. Scales that must have once been vibrant with color had faded into a muddy gray, and the ground was littered with blood. 

_“Can you please answer me? Did you find it?”_

“Yeah,” Soojin whispers. “I think I did.” 

She walks to the side, directing her light over the rest of the body. “It’s… bad. This definitely isn’t any cadet’s work. It’s whole body is… ripped up. Like a…” Soojin cuts the thought off before it escapes, but Soyeon picks up on it. 

_“Like a what?”_

“Nevermind,” Soojin sighs, returning to the front of the dragon. Face to face with the beast, a few memories instinctively rise up, hot in her stomach. Ashes and embers littering the street, a warm, familiar hand in hers, telling her to run and not look back. A city on fire, echoes of dragon’s roars. Soojin had looked back, in the end, and seen the horror that was a whole city block collapsing under the pure intensity of a dragon’s flames. Feet peeking out from beneath rubble, unmoving. 

She had seen dragons before, of course she had; but the grainy videos and boring news reports hadn’t prepared her for the real thing. 

Dragons are cruel, savage beings, supposedly capable of sentient thought and reasoning. Soojin can’t see them as anything but the creatures that took her hometown from her, erasing her happy life, stealing her family away and leaving her with a path she would have never dreamed of. It had been the elite dragons who had wiped out Busan. Unclassifiable dragons, powerful enough to not even fit into the system humans had created for them. The highest of dragon kind, and the cruelest. Not even the strongest cadets could defeat them, no, they hadn’t even stood a chance, and the Song mission had proved that. 

And Soojin hated them with a burning passion. 

Yet, one lay before her, eyes wide and unseeing. The marks littering it’s face could only be that of an elite dragon’s, but that was impossible - elite dragons didn’t die. No one had ever been strong enough to injure, let alone kill, one. But Soojin could see the intricate markings, ones the recon team would have missed from the air, jagged lines crossing the creature’s forehead between it’s eyes. Soojin knew the symbol. It had been burned into the backs of her eyelids. Remained in her dreams for years, a fiery reminder of what happened that fateful day in Busan. 

“It’s an elite,” she suddenly announces into the radio, tone a little breathless. There was a pregnant pause, a long silence only interrupted by static. _“You… you’re sure?”_

“Yes,” she tries to sound calm, like she’s not face to face with a dead elite. Like her memories aren’t flashing every time she closes her eyes, screams of don’t look, Soojin echoing in her brain. “Soyeon, why is an elite here? This is way too close to the academy. They’re never _this_ close.” She shivers. 

_“Seo, I need an in-detail description of the dragon immediately.”_

Soojin jumps. It wasn’t Soyeon on the line anymore - that voice had to be their proctor, Naeun. She was a woman of fake encouragement and even faker smiles. But her usually light and airy voice had turned intense and serious in a single instant, coloring Soojin with confusion. Something wasn’t right here.

“Um,” she stammers, “it’s definitely an elite, it has the symbol on it’s forehead. Big for a female, long body, it was probably a reddish color before it died, and - it’s sides are all ripped up, and it’s throat torn… wide open.”

_“By what, Seo?”_

“I…” She cautiously walks forward, until the stench is so overwhelming she feels the urge to vomit. Soojin avoids the dragon’s open mouth, the tongue lolling out and sharp teeth lining the roof of it’s mouth, bending down to look at the throat. It was lacerated in several places, crusted over with long-dried blood, quickly decaying. The wounds themselves were far too high up for a human to reach, once again disproving her theory of a rogue cadet or an academy team taking it out. Soojin’s eyes travel over it’s mangled body once more, observing the way it’s shredded, almost as if… bitten through. In a rush of sudden clarity, her breath leaves her lungs. 

Except, her realization made no sense. Something like this didn’t just _happen_. Dragons were loyal to their own kind to a fault. “Ma’am,” Soojin begins, breathless, “I think it was attacked. By another dragon. The size of the lacerations, and the height… it would add up, at least.”

Naeun’s normally cloyingly sweet, soft voice twisted into a mumble of curses. Soojin flinches as she swears loudly, hands clapping up to her ears. _“It has to be her,”_ she whispers, almost as though it’s an afterthought. Muffled, but decipherable. 

“Naeun-ssi, what am I supposed to -”

_“Return immediately,”_ she orders, voice icy hot. _“We need a report immediately.”_

“B-but, I still haven’t collected any samples -”

_“Now, Soojin.”_

She shivers, hands coming up to hug herself tightly. Soojin rises from the ground slowly, crossing the ground until she’s in front of the dragon again. She looks at the symbol across it’s forehead one last time, making sure she renews her memory. No matter what, she doesn’t want to forget. The radio is silent, now, not even static coming through her earpiece. The dead elite’s eyes glare at her, glossed over and milky as she slowly backs up. She shivers once more, feet directing her back to where she came - 

until they were stopped by a solid surface behind her. Soojin slowly turns around, heart dropping. A _very_ alive pair of dragon eyes stare at her, unblinking, glowing in the dark like the stars overhead. Soojin jumps back with a screech, scrambling back until her back is nearly touching the dead dragon. Her feet slide across the slippery texture of the sand, catching on a few stray rocks. Soojin’s hand grips the hilt of the knife on her belt tightly. 

Maybe it’s foolish, to fight. What’s the point? A deer may run from a lion, but it’s fruitless. But Soojin is certainly no deer, and she won’t let it end here. There’s so much more she has to see, and Soyeon will wonder where she went. Soojin will live until this world has been cleansed of dragons, and if she has anything to say about it, _she’ll_ be doing the cleansing. So she draws her knife, pointing the tip of the blade at the dragon. It’s foolish, yes, but she’s determined. 

Face to face with a living, breathing dragon, the air leaves her lungs. Because one of the things they always fail to mention on the news is how _beautiful_ they are. Terribly beautiful, creatures of destruction, fated to flame and brimstone. This one is faint purple, a unique color and vibrance she’s never seen the likes of before, it’s rough scales nearly glowing under the stars. It’s wings flare out, the leathery material a sweet lilac, encompassing the sky. 

The dragon growls, a low, rumbling sound, slowly stalking forward. It huffs, stray flames leaving its jaws, and Soojin flinches on instinct. It’s smaller than the dead elite behind her, it’s horns curling up from its narrow maw, a wild tail thrashing behind its body. Littered across its body are claw marks and scratches still faintly bleeding, the evidence of a scuffle of some sort. Soojin stares into the bloody teeth and swallows hard, flipping the knife over in her grip, taking one more step back. 

Soojin knows, in that moment, that she had been right - this dragon before her had killed the elite, somehow. For what reason, she didn’t understand; dragons didn’t kill their own kind. It was completely unheard of, a phenomena people only spoke of in hushed, theoretical whispers. 

The dragon’s jaw opens wide, and Soojin squeezes her eyes shut, her previous determination flickering out. What can she do? Pointing her knife at a beast such as this one was laughable. She sees the rows of teeth, connected by strings of saliva, stained red by the other dragon’s blood, and lets out a small whimper. 

But the dragon does not move any further. Instead, it _speaks._

“Did the academy send you?” 

Soojin blinks, her whole body shaking in disbelief. The dragon had spoken, in a recognizable language no less. It was low and inhuman, but she could _understand._ The voice was surprisingly lilting, at least, as much as a dragon’s voice could be. 

“I.... don’t…” Soojin stammers.

“They sent you, right? To find me?”

“No,” Soojin says shakily. “I came here for this one.” She gestures to the dragon laying behind her. She lowers her voice to a near whisper. The dragon can probably smell her fear in the wind, an enticing scent. “You killed it, didn’t you? You killed an elite.”

“Does it matter?”

Yes. It mattered more than this dragon could know - a dragon killing another dragon is the kind of information they could use. 

“I-” 

She’s cut off by the deafening sound of helicopters flying through the air, hurtling towards them at a rapid pace. Soojin smiles. If she can stall for long enough without getting eaten, she may be saved. She won’t have to suffer the same fate as her parents, crushed between the tooth and fang of a rabid beast. 

The dragon tenses at the sound, wings flapping up in a sudden rush of air. Soojin braces herself, ready to sprint as soon as the dragon launches off from the ground for the helicopters, slowly backing up. She’s nearly around the dead dragon, ready to breathe a sigh of relief - and then the dragon flies forward, not at the helicopters but at _her_ and she only has the time to let out a small squeak before the claws wrap around her body in a tight grip. The knife flies out of her hands, left behind as the dragon pushes off of the ground and the earth falls behind. She screams, her stomach twisting as air whips around her harshly. 

The dragon climbs higher and higher, away from any hope of Soojin’s survival, and the helicopters pick up speed, the people within pointing at the fleeing dragon. They begin to fire their guns, aimed straight for both the dragon _and_ Soojin. 

“Stop,” she attempts to scream, her words carried away by the wind, “it’s me!” 

The dragon makes a low, rumbly noise, almost as though it’s… sympathetic. “They don’t care. As long as they kill _me,_ they don’t care about the innocent lives they might lose.” 

“What does it matter,” Soojin screams, “you’re going to kill me too! I’d rather die taking down a dragon than _die_ by a dragon’s hand.”

The dragon makes another sound, as though it’s weary, and then it’s diving straight up, breaking through clouds and dodging the hail of lasers aimed for its body. Soojin struggles in it’s grip, attempting to free herself, and it holds on even tighter until she’s wincing at the shadows of pain. 

“I won’t let you do this,” she promises. 

The dragon makes an amused sound, the air thins, and Soojin’s vision fades to black.

…


	2. Chapter Two

…

Soojin wakes slowly.

Her eyes flutter open insistently, giving way to a world of rock and stone. Gray is all she sees. She groans and gathers herself onto her elbows, lazily rising from the hard earth. Her vision is still hazy, unfocused.

Soojin blinks awake when she sees the first pile of bones. One, two, three, they spread out across the… whatever she’s in. Cave? Hideout?

There’s no light, only the faint flickering of a flame over on the far wall. It makes the shadows jump and dance, tricking Soojin’s eyes. There’s a… nest? At least, there’s a pile of sticks and grass forming a circle. It’s pressed in, like something heavy had been laying on it. She blinks again, covering her mouth tightly so no sound escapes. Her eyes trace over one of the piles of bones, and she feels something roil in her gut, heavy and horrible. 

“Oh my god,” she intones low in her throat, dragging herself away from the scattered cartilage. She shivers, inching backwards until she hits something warm and solid. Soojin jumps at the low rumble coming from behind her. 

She turns slowly, warily, as though she knows exactly what she’ll face. And she does - it’s no surprise when her eyes meet the broad form of the very same dragon from before, towering above her. It stares impassively as Soojin scrambles backwards, reaching for the closest thing to a weapon that she can find - which happens to be a remarkably large bone. Soojin drops it in disgust before glaring up at the dragon, fingers clenching and unclenching as though wishing for a knife to hold. 

“Good morning,” the dragon says. Soojin feels as though she’s being made fun of; it’s tone is far too cheery for a creature that razes cities and countries. She slowly backs away until her back hits the cold wall, trapped. 

“Don’t do that,” she hisses, a warning. The dragon huffs, a sound far too close to a laugh for Soojin’s comfort. She scowls. 

“Do what?”

“Oh,” Soojin spits out, “don’t play coy. You _kidnapped_ me.”

“I saved you.”

“You took me away from my only hope of being saved,” she says, fists tight. “I won’t be your plaything, or your food, or _whatever_ the hell it is you want.”

The dragon sits back on it’s haunches, eyes gleaming with intelligence, expression twisting into a frown. Or as close as a dragon can get to frowning. It’s broad body had blocked the light before, but now Soojin can see a hint of sunlight peeking through behind it through a wide crack in the wall. A boulder, she realizes. 

“The academy doesn’t care about you. If you had gone back to them, they would have gotten rid of all the evidence. And that includes you.”

Soojin gapes. “You don’t know the academy, not like I do. And even if that were true… it would be far better than being your toy, or your food.”

The dragon scrunches it’s face up. “You’re not my food, and you’re not my toy either.”

Soojin whips around, gesturing to the piles of bones licked clean incredulously. “There’s _bones _all over the place. How am I supposed to believe that?”__

__

__“ _ _Animal__ bones. I don’t eat humans.”_ _

__

__She raises an eyebrow. “No, just dragons, then?”_ _

__

__The dragon flinches, eyes flashing for only a second before sliding shut. It takes a second to regain itself, and then the dragon growls lowly. “No. I only kill them.”_ _

__

__Soojin opens her mouth to speak once more, but the creature whips it’s wings out suddenly, startling her and robbing the words from her lips. “I don’t need to explain myself to you,” the dragon says calmly, “and I have some hunting to do. _Someone_ kept me busy last night.”_ _

__

__“And who’s fault is that?”_ _

__

__The dragon sighs. “You don’t understand, do you? I _saved_ you. You would have died if you stayed there. If anything, you should be grateful.”_ _

__

__She glares, grinding her teeth together. “Don’t tell me how _I_ should feel. You have no right. I have friends in the academy, a life waiting for me. Don’t tell me you plan to keep me here forever?”_ _

__

__“Well,” the dragon stands, shaking itself off. “We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it, won’t we?”_ _

__

____“Answer me, you-”__ _ _

__

__The dragon moves the boulder aside with relative ease, sunlight flooding into the cave. Soojin is momentarily blinded by the way the sunlight reflects off of it’s scales - in the dark of the night, she had been unable to see the pure vibrance of the color. But now, her eyes scan over it’s body, taking in the different shades of plum and lilac mixing together to create one beautiful surface. The breath leaves her lips in a whistle. It’s still marred by the wounds from the night before, but it was already nearly healed. Dragon regeneration, she supposes._ _

__

__It’s wings unfurl, nearly too big for the cave. The sound of claws scratching against stone causes Soojin to clap her hands over her ears as the dragon clambers up, a few stray pebbles falling behind it. Her eyes widen. The entrance is open. If she could just slip out while the dragon isn’t looking, she would be free. She could return to the academy. She could find Soyeon. Her breath catches and she runs forward, blind hope filling her gut -_ _

__

__and it’s quenched as the dragon kicks the boulder back into place, leaving her. The force of it causes the fire behind her to flicker out, and _that’s_ when Soojin truly panics, fear settling into her like a wildfire, setting her alight. It’s completely silent, only inky black darkness keeping her company, and Soojin can’t help but cry out, hands scrabbling against the stone of the boulder desperately. _ _

__

__“No,” she gaps, finally hyperventilating. “Please, please…”_ _

__

__The darkness presses into her firmly, reminding her of the very things she had pushed down - Soojin, eleven, alone in a crumbled building, eyes peeking out into the streets from the darkness. Eyes vigilant as she watches the carnage, the destruction of her city. She can hear it - the roars, the low rumbles (or maybe, that was the blood rushing in her ears?). _I’m scared,_ she had whispered to herself, alone for the very first time in her life, her parents long gone. _ _

__

____I’m scared.__ _ _

__

__Time had disappeared, until Soojin didn’t know how long she had laid there, shaking, eyes peeking out through the cracks of the collapsed building. All she had known were the roars and the dark, suffocating her, crushing her. She had been numb when the firefighters pulled her out of the rubble. Numb when she saw her parents’ feet poking out from the bottom of a thin white sheet at the morgue. Numb, until it was replaced by bitter anger. Until she had arrived at the academy, alight with a rage she had never known the likes of before._ _

__

__“Please,” she whispers again, throat scratchy. Her fingernails feel as though they’re about to rip off, worn out by her incessant scratching at the wall. She had cried, that day at the morgue, and she cries now, slumped down into the floor as though she may melt into it at any second. The reality has set in - Soojin is well and truly alone. Alone with her worst nightmare, the very thing she had sworn to destroy, a monster who had taken everything from her. Her stifled sobs echo around the stone cave._ _

__

__She had thought that by joining the academy, she could have made a difference in this fucked up world. That she stood a chance._ _

__

__It feels like hours have passed by the time the boulder rolls open again, shining light into the cave. Soojin’s head raises slightly from where she’s lying on the ground, fingers scrabbling against stone. A shadow crosses over her._ _

__

__“Are you _bleeding?”__ _

__

__She doesn’t reply, instead glancing down at her bloody fingernails in numb shock. “Oh,” she breathes out._ _

__

__“Oh,” comes the dragon from above her, “you’re crying.”_ _

__

__It almost sounds… sympathetic. Like the dragon feels bad for Soojin. But that can’t be right, not at all. Because dragons are soulless, unfeeling creatures, who only care about their own gain. Soojin blearily glances up, but the dragon’s expression reveals nothing. The boulder slides into place behind it, but Soojin is more preoccupied with crying out as the dragon opens it’s jaws wide and blows out colorful flames. She opens her eyes after a moment of not being cooked, her gaze catching on the fire on the other side of the cave, alight again._ _

__

__“I forgot you can’t see in the dark.” It sounds remorseful, like the dragon feels genuine regret for causing Soojin any pain or suffering. But that also can’t be true. It just couldn’t. It wasn’t plausible for a dragon to be feeling guilt, or anything of the sort._ _

__

__The fire bursts into life, crackling away. Soojin stares at it, dumbfounded, as the dragon rumbles and drags a few rabbits forward in it’s claws. It holds them over the fire, waiting until they’re thoroughly cooked before looking back at Soojin, who’s still staring. “What,” it says, “I thought you would appreciate not having to eat uncooked meat.”_ _

__

__“Do you… usually eat cooked meat?”_ _

__

__“Yes,” it replies, lifting a rabbit up and swallowing it in one gulp. Soojin shivers in poorly concealed disgust. “It tastes better that way.”_ _

__

__“...you’re a strange dragon,” she decides aloud. In all her time at the academy, she had never heard of a dragon who cooks it’s food, let alone hunted animals instead of humans. A rabbit flops down beside her, and she stares at the cooked meat which… surprisingly, looks quite good at the moment. Soojin salivates a bit, but stares at it doubtfully, unwilling to dig in._ _

__

__“Come on,” the dragon says, “it’s getting cold.”_ _

__

__She stiffens and raises the rabbit up. Soojin swears to herself she will make this dragon pay before taking her first bite of a torn off piece. And it wasn’t the worst thing she’s eaten. Maybe a little charred and overcooked, but it’s actually better than anything she’s been eating at the academy in the past seven years. She hums quietly at the taste, closing her eyes and allowing herself to enjoy the taste._ _

__

__When Soojin opens her eyes, the dragon is staring at her openly. She glares back. “What?”_ _

__

__Their eyes meet for a few seconds before the dragon shifts. Soojin counts it as a small victory. “Why were you crying?” It finally asks._ _

__

__Soojin visibly stiffens, pushing the rabbit away._ _

__

__“I’m not eating you, if that’s what you were worried about.”_ _

__

__“That’s none of your business.”_ _

__

__“If it’s about the cave, I tried to make it a little more habitable for a human.”_ _

__

__“You left me alone in the darkness for hours,” she shoots back icily. “You clearly do not care that much.”_ _

__

__“I told you, I forgot-”_ _

__

__“That humans can’t see in the dark. I know.”_ _

__

__“If I had left the cave open, you would have left. I had no other option, okay?”_ _

__

__“Why can’t you just _let me go_?”_ _

__

__The dragon bristles. “I told you before. The academy - “_ _

__

__“I don’t care,” Soojin snaps, slamming her palms against the stone. “Let me go. I’d rather die there than here.”_ _

__

__“Can you stop being difficult for _one_ second? I’m _helping_ you.”_ _

__

__“If I’m being so difficult, just let me go. One less annoying human out of your life, right? Let me go.”_ _

__

__“No,” the dragon growled loudly, firm. The growl echoes through the cave, silencing her. The dragon glares down at her, eyes hard. “You will not be leaving.”_ _

__

__Soojin glares with as much steel as she can muster, crossing her arms. She must look like a petulant child, she surmises. The dragon rises, and she flinches, because _finally,_ the dragon snapped and was going to eat her. But instead it lumbers past, rolling the boulder into place and swinging it’s head back around. “Please don’t try to escape when I’m asleep. I don’t know if I want to deal with that right now.”_ _

__

__Soojin turns her head, pointedly not speaking._ _

__

__“Wow. Very mature. Anyways, don’t try to kill me, either. It’s pointless.”_ _

__

__“We’ll see,” she finally says._ _

__

__“Seriously,” the dragon rumbles, curling up on one side of the cave, eyes sliding shut. Soojin watches it for a few minutes until it’s breathing evens out. She considers attempting to attack it with one of the scattered bones, even picking one up and turning it over, but ultimately, she sets it down and lies down on the hard stone._ _

__

__The dragon laughs dangerously, apparently not as asleep as she thought it was._ _

__

__“Good night,” it says.__

__…_ _

__  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this should be the last shorter chapter! the next chapter picks up considerably. thank you so much for reading, and please leave kudos and a comment if you enjoyed! 
> 
> find me on twitter @yeosangflvr!


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the next week, Soojin patiently waits for any opportunity to escape.

...

For the next week, Soojin patiently waits for any opportunity to escape.

The dragon, despite it’s carefree appearance, took care in making sure she didn’t go anywhere - when she asked for water, it would accompany her outside to a nearby fresh stream, keeping close enough to remind her that even if she ran, she wouldn’t accomplish anything. Soojin took every opportunity she was given to observe the landscape around the cave, scanning for the easiest route out of here. They were far out enough that she was unfamiliar with the scenery and had no idea how to return to the academy, but she wouldn’t let that discourage her. 

Whenever the dragon leaves the cave, it would light the fire before it rolls the stone back into place. A small mercy that Soojin is thankful for. And instead of rabbits and other animals, the dragon begins to bring real human food (Soojin decides not to ask where it came from. She knows she wouldn’t like the answer). 

Soojin begins to fall into a routine. Each day, the dragon would leave to hunt. She would be left to her own devices for a few lonesome hours before the dragon would return and they’d eat together in uncomfortable silence. Then, they would sleep, and the whole cycle would begin anew. 

The dragon is a bit of a mystery to her; Soojin still can’t understand it’s motives for this whole ordeal. She still thinks that maybe the dragon is just fattening her up before it’s big meal, but it didn’t seem too plausible. Dragons just didn’t do that kind of thing. But at the same time, this dragon is very, very different from the others - killing one of its own kind, kidnapping a human and taking it back to it’s home. Dragons are territorial creatures, and it’s not in their nature to share with others or go out of their way to help another being, much less a human. They _are _known for their greed and impatience, after all.__

__

__It’s why Soojin waits for the first slip up, the first mistake. Any chance to escape, she’ll take it… and with time, it did. The dragon returns on the seventh dawn obviously weary and tired, halfheartedly shoving the stone aside and flopping down onto the ground without a word. If Soojin peers close enough, she can see crusted blood lining it’s jaw, evidence of it’s already consumed meal. The metallic scent of it still makes her want to throw up, no matter how much time passes, no matter how much gore she has to witness. The dragon tosses some still-fresh bread at her, and Soojin barely catches it before it falls onto the ground._ _

__

__As she digs in, the dragon sits down and curls into a ball, falling asleep almost immediately. Soojin finishes her bread and surreptitiously glances at it. And there, in between the entrance and the dragon’s side is an almost human shaped gap. One that she could make work if she put some effort into it, she decides. She slowly creeps forward as the dragon snores, smoke hazily rising from it’s nostrils. Soojin takes a few more steps forward, quietly waiting for a reaction. When she gets none, she continues on until she’s at the edge of the gap. Her heart races, adrenaline pumping through her entire body at the sight of the sunny desert landscape outside waiting for her. She can wait no longer, she decides, crossing the gap between the dragon and the wall in a flash and exiting the cave._ _

__

__Soojin looks back, once. The dragon slumbers on, and she _sprints_. Soojin runs and runs, across barren plains and into far more habitable hills. A place more humans are likely to reside in, Soojin notes. The hills are still in the desert, which fills her with anxiety at the thought of the dragon awaking and flying across to find her, but also comfort - this way, it might even be possible for her to find the academy. Soojin isn’t too far away, if she’s still in the desert. _ _

__

__She walks for another twenty minutes through the hills, slowly looking around for any sign of civilization or _anything_ at all. She comes across a riverbed void of water and a few pale trees, the ground dry and cracked beneath her feet. The air is still and quiet, void of chirping birds or even the distinct noises of small insects, a strange occurrence for a time such as dawn. The world should be waking, but instead, it feels dead. Soojin speeds up, a little unnerved and suspicious, eyes flicking around. _ _

__

__Soojin stops when she sees the stark claw marks driven into the trunk of a nearby tree. They’re fresh, obviously made by something _big_. By something like a dragon. And they’re still fresh. _ _

__

__She shivers momentarily before snapping herself out of it, brusquely walking in the opposite direction. But a flash of movement out of the corner of her eye has her stopping for a second, whirling towards it. There’s nothing there, just the red and purple sky slowly fading to blue, and a few dry leaves flying away with the wind._ _

__

__A growl comes from behind her, and Soojin almost falls over in surprise. A dragon stands there, crouched between two trees. It watches with glassy red eyes, impassive and revealing nothing, only slowly prowling forward as Soojin swallows around the lump in her throat. She takes a useless step backwards, and the dragon’s expression twists into what would be a smile on a human, but instead, it looks malicious and twisted._ _

__

__“Look what came walking in,” the dragon says, creeping forward until it’s not even five feet from Soojin. She understands, now, that there’s no point in running from it. She wouldn’t even make it five feet before she was snatched up or eaten._ _

__

__The dragon is far bulkier than the purple dragon she had been with for the past week. Perhaps even bigger than the dead dragon that had gotten her into this mess in the first place, it towers over her not only in height but also in width, with broad shoulders lined with shimmering blue scales. It’s voice is deeper than the purple’s dragons, as well, more raspy and booming. It’s horns curve downwards, ending at the tip of it’s jaw. The dragon’s lips curl back to reveal rows of gleaming teeth._ _

__

__“A human from the academy,” it continues, a teasing lilt to it’s voice, “how surprising. I didn’t know they ventured so far away from safety.”_ _

__

__Soojin backs away slowly, raising a hand up as though she can stop the dragon from doing whatever it wants. It gives a great booming laugh, seemingly shaking the earth beneath her and startling her enough to lose her balance. Once she’s regained it, however, she glares up at it. “I’m not afraid of you,” she says._ _

__

__“A _brave_ little human,” it replies, flexing it’s claws for show. “But we both know that’s a lie. I can smell your fear easily.” _ _

__

__It opens it’s jaws, leaning forwards as though poised to strike her._ _

__

__“Stop.”_ _

__

__Soojin whirls around, not sure what to expect, but her heart drops when she sees another unfamiliar dragon. It glares at her, but isn’t actively trying to eat her, so she shifts in it’s direction a bit. This one is slimmer and more compact, with golden scales covering it’s lithe body. It clambers up the side of the riverbed until Soojin is sandwiched between two dragons, uncomfortably shifting as they stare each other down._ _

__

___“What,”_ the first dragon hisses, anger coloring it’s tone. “Don’t tell me you’ve suddenly become a pacifist, too?”_ _

__

__“No,” the other dragon replies, and Soojin whips around nervously to glance at it. “But can’t you smell it?”_ _

__

__The first dragon tilts its head curiously, and the second one huffs out a laugh. “I suppose I’ve always had a better nose than you, hm? This human,” a clawed limb points at Soojin, “smells exactly like Shuhua. Here, come see.”_ _

__

___Shuhua?_ She blankly wonders before snapping back to the present._ _

__

__Soojin doesn’t even get the chance to run before the two dragons encroach on her, coming close enough to sniff her with a pair of bewildered expressions. The first dragon pulls back with a hiss, claws scratching against the cracked earth. “Why would a human smell like _Shuhua?_ I thought she hated them even more than us!”_ _

__

__The golden dragon turns her around with a nudge of it’s muzzle, eyes boring into her. “How curious,” it says, like Soojin isn’t even there._ _

__

__“Well,” the blue dragon says, “it doesn’t matter. This is our territory. Shuhua has no claim here. And I’m quite tired of eating snakes and rats, aren’t you?”_ _

__

__The golden dragon laughs, and Soojin jumps. She takes back her earlier thought of it seeming less likely to kill her. “Sure. Shall we split it?”_ _

__

__Before she can voice a quick _no,_ something comes barreling through the sky. The dragon directly before her turns it’s head to the clouds, wings flaring out defensively. Another dragon shoots down, faster than Soojin’s eyes can track, landing in the riverbed beside them. Soojin feels a strange sense of relief at the sight of the purple dragon (Shuhua?). And maybe a little bit of terror. The previously indifferent dragon she had been stuck with for the past week looks _angry.__ _

__

__The yellow dragon straightens it’s back, puffing itself up. “Shuhua,” it says amicably, “it’s been a long time, hasn’t it? Pacifists are too good for other dragons, aren’t they?”_ _

__

__“I’ll be taking the human back now,” Shuhua glares, a warning._ _

__

__“No, I don’t think so,” the blue dragon replies airily. “This human stumbled into our territory, therefore it’s _ours_ now. That means we can do whatever we want with it.”_ _

__

__“Give her back to me, and no one will get hurt.”_ _

__

__“Ooh,” the golden dragon hums, “a threat? How interesting. But I think the only one getting hurt here will be the human, and _you_ if you interfere. It’s two against one, you see.”_ _

__

__Shuhua’s eyes dart between the two dragons, and that’s the only warning Soojin gets before the purple dragon darts forward between the two of them, claws extended towards her. She closes her eyes as she feels pressure all around her body, and she’s lifted up… but she isn’t moving. Soojin’s eyes open, and she sees the blue dragon’s hand around her, her heart dropping. It must have grabbed her before Shuhua reached her._ _

__

__Shuhua swivels back, the dragon’s head whipping around, eyes alight with fire. Soojin struggles and twists in the blue dragon’s grip, but it’s pointless as it leaps off of the ground, hurtling into the clouds at a speed that makes her head hurt. She hears roars in the distance, her eyes closing as the wind whips around her face startlingly. Soojin sees nothing, but as the air thins she feels herself hurtling towards the edge of blacking out, the blood rushing in her ears._ _

__

__A dragon screams below, the one holding her cries loudly out in clear panic, and the claws unclench around her body. Soojin’s eyes open, and she sees the dawn before her, slowly giving way to a beautiful clear blue sky. She blinks once, twice._ _

__

__And then she’s falling rapidly, her body ripping, tearing apart under the force of her fall. Her limbs flail around in the air uselessly, but Soojin pays them no mind. She watches the sky before her, simply glad this is her last sight._ _

__

__It didn’t make her so glad to think about the people she was leaving behind, but she supposed a death by falling wasn’t so bad. Things could be worse. But then she thinks of her family, waiting for vengeance. Soyeon’s happy expression when she would sneak them snacks back into the dorm. Finally, her eyes close heavily, sorrowfully, the wind whistles, and she holds her breath. Her back brushes against some stray branches, she knocks against a few trees and she _knows -__ _

__

__she’s caught by something solid and cold._ _

__

__Soojin thrashes momentarily at the feeling of claws around her, because she got caught again, and the other dragons want to eat her, and somehow, by some miracle, the purple one doesn’t. She scrabbles against the claws until she hears a familiar hissing noise overhead. Soojin wearily glances up. Shuhua is looking ahead, focused on getting them away as soon as possible, but the dragon’s grip tightens for just a second, a silent warning for her to keep quiet._ _

__

__The dragon breathes heavily, obviously labored, and blood drips down Shuhua’s side from a few scratches in the dragon’s side. It looks painful, but their pace never decreases. Soojin can even hear Shuhua’s pounding heart beat, held close to the dragon’s chest. A few scales had been ripped out, odd spots of discoloration covering the dragon’s side._ _

__

__Soojin doesn’t understand why the dragon hadn’t let her be eaten._ _

__

__Dragons don’t care about trivial things like this._ _

__

__Not about human lives._ _

__

__But Soojin can see the evidence before her, the scratches and missing scales, the heavy intakes of breath, the painful wheezes. As they rise, it seems to get even worse, peaking as they rise over the clouds. Shuhua’s wings struggle on each beat, faltering occasionally, the dragon’s neck straining against the force of the wind. If Soojin closes her eyes, she can almost pretend she herself is flying, and she’s not being held hundreds, no thousands of feet in the air by the puny claws of a lithe dragon._ _

__

__She thinks she can hear roars in the near distance, but it may be her blatant paranoia. Shuhua keeps climbing, until they’re high above the clouds and Soojin gets a little dizzy. Whether from the view or the height itself, she doesn’t know. She moves a bit to make herself more comfortable, and the dragon holding her rumbles._ _

__

__“Don’t you dare,” comes the labored voice, “fall again. I’m not sure I’ll catch you again. On purpose.”_ _

__

__And then they were plummeting towards earth as the dragon’s wings folded in close to its body. Soojin may have screamed. It was slightly better than her previous fall, but she still felt an overwhelming nauseous feeling deep in her gut. The stop a few feet from the ground, and Shuhua’s wings extend out once more, leading them on a steady glide through the desert. The dragon noticeably relaxes, probably reassured by the sight of its own territory._ _

__

__They arrive at the cave, and Soojin is dropped unceremoniously before it while Shuhua rolls the stone aside, gesturing for her to follow her inside. Soojin has no fight left; she follows without a single complaint, sighing loudly once the boulder rolls back into place and a fire is lit once more. She brushes the dirt off of herself, glancing back up when her spine prickles._ _

__

__Shuhua is staring at her intently. Angrily, almost._ _

__

__“You may be one of the worst humans I’ve ever met.”_ _

__

__Soojin gapes. “What-”_ _

__

__“You realize,” the dragon pauses for effect, “you tried to run away from a dragon by running into _another_ dragon’s territory?” _ _

__

__Shuhua huffs out a laugh, if not a little sarcastically. Soojin clears her throat, unsure what to say. But she doesn’t have to speak._ _

__

__“If I hadn’t woken up, what do you think would have happened? You would have died. Horribly,” Shuhua continues. “They like to burn their-”_ _

__

__“Please don’t finish that sentence,” Soojin finally says._ _

__

__“No, I think I will, if it makes you understand.”_ _

__

__There’s a long pause of silence, and then a murmured, “maybe you would understand if I had left you with the academy.”_ _

__

__Soojin bristles. “The academy is not the monster here. _You_ are.”_ _

__

__“Really?” It comes out mocking, disbelieving. Maybe a little sad._ _

__

__Shuhua stalks back over to the boulder lying against the entrance of the cave and pushes it aside. The dragon only looks back into the cave to blow a stream of fire into the pit on the far wall, setting it alight. Then, the boulder rolls back into place, and she’s alone._ _

__

__Somehow, Soojin feels something bitter roiling in her gut. Something like guilt._ _

__

__But she hadn’t said something wrong, had she?_ _

_..._

_  
_

__

__

__Shuhua doesn’t return for a long, long time._ _

__

__Maybe time is skewed in the cave, but it feels like ages, and Soojin quickly succumbs to hunger. The boulder eventually moves, and she looks up from where she’s flopped against the floor to the sight of a slightly charred rabbit being thrust at her._ _

__

__“No human food today. Wasn’t worth the effort, sorry.”_ _

__

__She peers around the dragon. The sky is still bright blue, without a hint of dusk. So maybe it hadn’t been as long as she had thought._ _

__

__“What? Still thinking of running away? You shouldn’t be running away....” Shuhua pauses, looking embarrassed. “What’s your name?”_ _

__

__“Soojin,” she says slowly. “Seo Soojin.”_ _

__

__“Oh,” the dragon replies breathlessly, eyes a little wide. Soojin tilts her head. “What?”_ _

__

__“It’s nothing.” She takes Shuhua’s word for it. Shuhua, instead of coming back in a rage like Soojin had been expecting after the way the dragon had stormed off earlier, simply flops down onto the ground and huffs, smoke escaping from the dragon’s nose and curling into the air._ _

__

__Soojin breathes in slowly, preparing herself. Then she straightens up. “Thank you,” she grits out behind her teeth, “for saving me. And I’m sorry for calling you a monster. I don’t think monsters save people from hungry dragons.”_ _

__

__“And I used to not think humans were this irritating,” the dragon’s jaw curls up into a grin, “but in the past week, you’ve exceeded my expectations.”_ _

__

__“Hey,” she says in defense. “I’m not…”_ _

__

__“Seriously,” Shuhua continues, “you have me thinking about breaking my no humans rule.”_ _

__

__Soojin exhales slowly, eyes wide as she sits down warily. “And why… do you have that?”_ _

__

__Shuhua curls into a ball tightly, the dragon’s face hidden. “My own personal reasons.” Soojin should just let it stop there, let this conversation dwindle away. But her curiosity persists, the questions she previously withheld spilling forth from her lips._ _

__

__“Then… Why do you hate the academy so much, if we’re practically doing your job of killing dragons for you? It’s mutually beneficial.”_ _

__

__“The academy has _never_ benefited anyone,” the dragon spits out, head snapping up in a rage. “And the sooner you learn that, the better off you will be.”_ _

__

__Soojin sits in stunned silence at the fervor of the statement. At how convinced this dragon is. “No,” she finally says. “You’re wrong. They benefited me. They took me in when _your_ kind took everything away.” _ _

__

__Shuhua blinks back slowly, lazily, the dragon’s previous rage absent. “Do you think you are the only one to have things taken away from you?” It’s quiet, slow._ _

__

__Soojin closes her mouth and swallows. “What have you lost?”_ _

__

__“Not what,” Shuhua replies, curling up and facing the wall. “Who.”_ _

__

__There’s silence for a few moments as Soojin picks up her rabbit and takes an uneasy bite. Finally, the dragon speaks. “I’ll be sleeping. Don’t run off again, please.”_ _

__

__Soojin gives a quiet sound of assent, and the dragon begins to snore.__

__…_ _

_  
_The dragon wakes some time in the night, in between dusk and nightfall._  
_

__

__Shuhua doesn’t say a word to Soojin before leaving, and it fills her with unease. Maybe the dragon had finally had enough of her, and was leaving her behind to die, trapped in this cave. At least she has the fire, but she supposes even that will die out eventually, leaving her with only darkness. Soojin shivers and inches closer to the fire, near enough that it’s warmth soaks into her skin but far enough to not jump when it crackles or spits out sparks._ _

__

__Her anxiety is quickly assuaged when the stone is rolled aside and the dragon clambers up the entrance. The sky is dark, now, and she can barely make out Shuhua’s features. She can see the crimson staining the dragon’s muzzle, however, and suppresses another shiver. No matter what, Soojin doesn’t think she’ll be able to adjust to the sight of a dragon soaked in blood. It brings up too many memories._ _

__

__Her attention is drawn to the convenience store snacks thrown at her feet soon enough. Soojin can only imagine what Shuhua went through to fetch these, and the images that flash in her mind would be funny if she had a better sense of humor._ _

__

__She digs around in the bag, pulling out a few things that sound appetizing. Soojin even finds… ramyun? She glances up at the dragon, who’s looking down at her warily. “What am I supposed to do with this?” Soojin says, a hint of laughter on her lips. She quickly stomps it out._ _

__

__“Well,” the dragon rises, searching the darker side of the wall for something and making a small noise when it finds it, “you could use this.”_ _

__

__Soojin _does_ end up laughing when Shuhua turns around. In all her years, nothing could have prepared her for the sight of a dragon carrying a pot with it’s pointed snout. The dragon drops it by her with a loud _clang,_ and she picks it up, covering her mouth with her hand. Shuhua nearly… pouts. It’s a strange expression on a dragon. _ _

__

__Shuhua ends up accompanying her outside the stream to fill the pot with water, and holding it over the fire for her. Soojin’s excuse is that since the dragon is fireproof, Shuhua should have to be closest to the fire, but truthfully, she just never wants to be close enough for fire to burn ever again._ _

__

__After the water boils and she dumps the noodles in, she digs around for chopsticks in the bag halfheartedly, not really expecting anything. But Soojin finds a pair without an issue, and she glances up at the dragon. “How preemptive of you,” she says. The dragon huffs._ _

__

__She comes closer to the pot, trying to determine if it was ready, but a purple tail flicks in front of her and pushes Soojin backwards. “You’ll burn yourself,” Shuhua scolds her. Soojin groans and pushes at the tail, attempting to free herself. The scales aren’t cold, like they were earlier when they were flying - now, they feel warm and smooth. Shuhua startles at the touch and the tail quickly withdraws, curling around the dragon protectively. Soojin blankly glances up at the dragon. “You’re not used to being around other people, are you? Or dragons.”_ _

__

__“No,” Shuhua admits slowly, eyes narrowing. “I’ve been alone for a long, long time.”_ _

__

__“So I’m the first in a while?”_ _

__

__“The first ever, actually.”_ _

__

__“Hm,” Soojin turns back to the pot and empties it, “why have you been alone for so long, then? We don’t have anything better to do.”_ _

__

__Shuhua sighs. “Other dragons don’t like me, I don’t make a habit of taking humans to my cave, and I attempt to avoid the academy. That is all.”_ _

__

__Soojin raises an eyebrow. “You said earlier you lost someone, so you weren’t always alone, then.”_ _

__

__The dragon paws at the ground in frustration. “Maybe I should have just let you burn yourself on that pot earlier, hm? At least then you wouldn’t be asking all these questions.” Soojin sets the ramyun aside, coming closer to the dragon._ _

__

__“How did you lose them? Was it the academy? The elites? Is that why you killed that dragon, why you hate the academy so-”_ _

__

__“Both,” comes the cutting answer, and Soojin falls silent, waiting for more but also not expecting an answer. “Both were at fault. The elites, and the academy. They were equally at fault for what… happened.”_ _

__

__“And what… happened?” Soojin is honestly surprised she’s managed to wrench this much out of the previously tight lipped dragon, so she figures she might as well push as far as she can before Shuhua clams up again._ _

__

__Shuhua is quiet for a few moments. Then she says, “Someone very dear to me… went on a suicide mission. The kind that could have been prevented. I wanted them to stay. But they didn’t have a choice. I… never saw them again.”_ _

__

__Soojin sits for several minutes, silently thinking. Then she clears her throat. “If you haven’t seen them, it doesn’t mean they’re dead. They could be alive right now.”_ _

__

__The dragon huffs darkly. “Sometimes death isn’t the worst thing.”_ _

__

__She blinks silently, and the dragon looks away. Instead of pushing it more, she reaches for her ramyun once more and digs in. Her tongue only burns slightly as she eats._ _

__

__Shuhua yawns and turns over, sprawled haphazardly across the cave. The dragon silently watches her eat, and Soojin pretends not to feel the eyes on her as she finishes her food, rubbing her stomach a bit. Her fingers catch on a hole in the fabric of her academy shirt, and Soojin sighs heavily. The material is singed and dirty, and maybe a little pungent now, too._ _

__

__Soojin’s head snaps back up when the dragon begins to speak once more. “Who… who did _you_ lose?” _ _

__

__Soojin pauses momentarily, her eyes closing. “My family,” she says. “My parents, my aunt, my grandparents.” She grinds her teeth together, hesitating for only a second. “I lived in Busan.”_ _

__

__Shuhua noticeably winces. “Oh,” she says. The Busan attacks were kind of like a legend, now. A whole bustling city leveled by a few single dragons, razed to the ground. High death tolls. Infamous mass destruction. A city erased from existence in just a day. “I’m sorry.”_ _

__

__Soojin barks out a laugh in reply. “You don’t need to apologize. It’s not like it will redeem all dragons in my eyes.”_ _

__

__“No,” Shuhua says, “but I _am_ sorry. And I think you know by now I hate elites just as much as you and the rest of the academy. You saw that dragon, didn’t you.” It wasn’t a question._ _

__

__“Yeah,” she breathes out at the thought of that dead elite. The catalyst for this whole adventure. It was still so strange to think of a dragon killing another dragon. Prior to this ordeal, Soojin hadn’t even thought it was possible, let alone that she would see dragons fight before her eyes. Especially over _her.__ _

__

__But Soojin looks up at this dragon who brings her human food, who fights other dragons for her, who killed another dragon, and thinks maybe, just maybe, this one is different._ _

__

__At least, she would like to think that.__

__…_ _

__  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here's a chapter that's a little bit longer! from now on things will be faster paced. i also changed my ao3 name because the old one was haunting me so sorry if there was any confusion. a reminder that you can always find me on twitter @yeosangflvr and i will be willing to talk, especially in times like right now. thank you for reading!


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Soojin still really, really hates dragons.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'd just like to apologize in advance for the lack of an update last week. i recently found out my grandpa has cancer and is going into surgery soon, and on top of that he tested positive for covid. to say i've been worried is an understatement lol. on top of that i had been traveling, so i couldn't really find the time to update and im sorry! i will be trying to stick to my schedule from now on.

....

Soojin still really, really hates dragons.

But maybe she’s beginning to make an exception for Shuhua. It was hard to hate the dragon when she did things like bring Soojin clean clothes when she finally complained about the holes in her shirt, taking gentle care to not rip the material on the way over. Or when the dragon would huff out big laughs, her underbelly turned over to face the air when she thought she had made a particularly funny joke. And it was hard to imagine Shuhua ever hurting her, now, two weeks in - two weeks, and not a single scratch nor bite graced Soojin’s skin by Shuhua’s hand (claw?). 

At least, Soojin thinks it’s been two weeks. Time is fickle, and days spent in the cave tend to fly by. Maybe it’s been three weeks. Maybe more. Somehow, she finds she’s not so worried about her lack of knowledge, like she normally would be. Soojin tells time by Shuhua’s excursions. The dragon leaves at dawn, midday, and dusk exclusively to forage for food for both her and Soojin. 

And maybe Soojin has begun to warm up to Shuhua the slightest bit, and maybe she’s not so worried, but she still recognizes this can’t last forever. No matter how much time passes, it still doesn’t matter. She’s getting antsy, stuck within this cave, and she misses Soyeon horribly. 

Soojin decides to approach Shuhua one night at dinner. 

“Hey,” she says as the dragon pushes the boulder back into place, biting at her lip, “when do you think I… I can leave?”

“Leave?”

“Like.... you know, leave here. This can’t work forever, right? I have to get back to my friends, you have to go back to… whatever it was you were doing before.”

“You can’t leave,” the dragon growls, suddenly snapping her head up from where she had been resting. “The academy will kill you before you get to - “

“Yes, I get it,” Soojin hisses, “the academy is bad, you’re protecting me from it, whatever. But then what’s the plan here? You can’t keep me here forever.”

Shuhua almost seems to… pout. “Why not? Don’t you… like it here?”

“Why not?” Soojin repeats incredulously. “Of course I don’t like it here, you’ve been keeping me in a cave full of bones for like, three weeks now! You know what,” she says, “thank you very much for not eating me, but I think I might as well try to brave the academy - “

The dragon slams it’s hind leg down, bristling in anger. “No. You’re not going back, end of discussion. You don’t know what kind of things they’ll do to you.”

“And you do?” She hisses. “For all I know, you could just be trying to scare me.”

“If I told you,” the dragon growls back, “you wouldn’t believe me.”

“ _Try me,_ ” she whispers icily. “Whatever it is you’re trying to protect me from, I want to know. I’m tired of being in the dark all the time. If it’s so bad, why can’t you just _tell_ me?”

“I… I can’t,” Shuhua stutters out, “and if you knew and they ended up finding you, it would be so much worse than you not knowing. They might…” 

“What,” she breathes out. But the dragon hangs her head low, as though she refuses to reveal anymore. Soojin stands, her hands waving around wildly. “At the end of the day,” she begins, low and steady in her throat, “you are a dragon. I am a human. I belong to the academy. You’re the academy’s number one enemy, so where does that leave us? We can’t sit around in this cave all day and pretend we’re anything different.”

“You belong to the academy?” The dragon asks, straightening herself up so she towers above Soojin. Shuhua’s claws dig into the floor and Soojin’s gaze catches on them for only a second before flicking up to the dragon’s eyes. “Do you think the academy will care about the disappearance of a low rank cadet? They’ll search for you? Save you? I don’t want to be the one to break this to you,” Shuhua’s tail flicks across the room, “but you are disposable to them. And things that are disposable are one day discarded, do you understand?”

Soojin gapes for only a second before her vision turns red. “ _Disposable,_ ” she hisses. “I am not fucking _disposable._ They’ll search for me, no, they’ve _been_ searching for me.”

Shuhua sighs, her tail curling in around her body. “Soojin, if they’re searching for anyone right now, it’s me. Not you.”

“You?” She echoes. Then her mind flashes to the dead dragon in the desert, killed by Shuhua’s hand. The tone of Naeun’s voice, the helicopters sent after them. Shuhua’s vow of not killing humans, but… the dead cadets in the region. It would add up. “What did you _do?_ ” Soojin finally says.

“Nothing like anything you just thought, that’s for sure.”

“Then…” 

Shuhua’s tail pushes her towards the food she had brought earlier, before this whole mess. “Eat.” Soojin shakes her head adamantly, turning around to face the dragon once more. “No, I need - “

“ _Eat,_ ” the dragon insists far more forcefully this time, lips curling up into a toothy smile. The tone left little room for disagreement. 

Soojin turns around slowly and digs in, aware of the dragon’s careful eyes on her the whole time. 

…

Soojin hadn’t meant to find it, not really. 

To say she stumbled across it would be more accurate. 

It was an accident, truthfully - Soojin had been alone in the cave one day, Shuhua absent for what felt like the hundredth time in three weeks. Being alone for so long got to her, sometimes, and she had to find _something_ to preoccupy herself. So Soojin had ventured deeper into the cave, farther than ever before. She had never had a reason to, after all. 

Soojin was about to turn back, when she saw a little glint in the vague darkness. It’s enough for her to keep walking forward into the smaller tunnels that begin to branch out, into the shadows. Her first thought is that maybe there’s an exit through these tunnels - perhaps that glint had been a flash of bright sunlight? But no, it was far from it, she had discovered as she stared down at her feet. 

It was far from an escape route. It was a belt buckle. 

Soojin had reached down for it curiously, finglers gliding over the smooth metal of the buckle. Attached to it was a black leathery belt atop a black shirt and neatly folded slacks. And next to it… a jacket, embroidered with the proud symbol of the academy. Her own jacket long gone, Soojin had bent down to pick it up, wondering where it must have come from. Did Shuhua bring it here? And if so, for what purpose? But then, her eyes traced over the name on the nametag. A name tag for identifying cadets. Soojin nearly dropped the jacket in her grasp, her mouth opened wide. 

_Yeh Shuhua,_ the tag read.

Soojin turns, head whipping around to make sure no stray dragons had managed to sneak up on her. _Yeh Shuhua,_ she thinks. A familiar name. Too familiar, perhaps, if it had been stamped onto a name tag from the academy - meaning, someone named Shuhua had come here from the academy, but had disappeared except for a few articles of clothing. And now there was a dragon named Shuhua, claiming that the academy was evil and that she didn’t eat humans.

She came to the conclusion in an instant, dropping the jacket. The light of the tunnel revealed it was bloodied and torn in places. 

Soojin was sure, in that moment, that Shuhua had killed this poor knight cadet and taken her name. “Oh god,” she blurts out, staring at the academy’s insignia, “oh my god, oh my - “

And that leads her to this moment. 

She’s still staring down blankly, eyes never leaving the crimson-splattered jacket or the name tag. Soojin isn’t sure what to do, anymore. This Yeh Shuhua had been here before, and was obviously _not_ now. Her stomach roils, and her fingers clench. She had come to believe this dragon was different. Not a ruthless killer. But Soojin should have known better, not been so innocent. Dragons were all killers in the end. 

“Soojin?” Came a questioning rumble from the entrance of the tunnels. She jumps. 

She understands now that she’ll die here, just like this. To a dragon who had tricked her into complacence. Soojin actually prefers it to three more weeks of lies and suspense. She grabs the jacket and balls it up. She also slides the name tag into her palm for safe keeping. When she returns to the main cave, Shuhua is sitting up, waiting for her. She holds the bloodied, tattered jacket up, and the dragon reacts vicariously. 

“What are you doing with that,” Shuhua says, sniffing the air. It must smell like her fear, Soojin realizes. 

“I saw it,” she begins, voice unsteady. “You can’t hide, anymore. I know what you did to her.”

The dragon bares her teeth. “I don’t know what you think you know, but it’s not like that - “

“I know,” she spits out icily, “that you kept Yeh Shuhua here, just like me. Told him that same shit about the academy, convinced her it’s safer with you. Then you killed her, didn’t you?”

“No - “

“Kept her clothes too. Like trophies or something? Did it fill you with some sick kind of pleasure to see them back there, all bloodied from what _you_ did - “

“You don’t know what you’re talking about, Soojin,” Shuhua replies in steadily rising anger, “I didn’t _do_ any - “

“They’re covered in _blood,_ ” Soojin finally screams, haphazardly waving the cloth around. “You can’t deny that you did it. I have all the evidence I need right here.”

“This isn’t what it looks like,” the dragon almost sounds like she’s pleading, now. Soojin grinds her teeth together forcefully, angrily. She gives a bitter laugh. “So what’s on the clothes then? Who’s name tag is this? You _didn’t_ kill this poor girl, tear her apart?”

“ _No,_ ” the dragon cries out, “I didn’t kill her!” 

Soojin’s nails bite into her palms, her breath staggers, and she _knows_ she’s going to die, but she can’t stop imagining a girl just like her, terrified and alone in this cave with nothing but a hungry beast who had been fattening her up for weeks, gaining her trust to ultimately betray it. Is this how Yeh Shuhua had felt, in her final moments? Shuhua’s expression is raw and angry, Soojin’s heart is pounding, but she can’t stop.

“Is it fun for you? Making us trust you, leading us on before you eat us? Do you have fun toying with humans like that?” She spits up at the towering dragon. “Because I _never_ trusted you. I _knew_ you were a monster and I should have killed you every single damn time I got a chance!”

It’s silent for a moment, the sentence hanging in the air heavily. Shuhua’s eyes narrow, and she shifts into a defensive stance, haunches raised and her teeth level with Soojin’s head. She shivers at the sight, but keeps her chin up, staring the dragon down furiously. “You don’t know anything about what’s at play here,” Shuhua says softly, so contrary to what Soojin’s expecting. “You don’t know me. You don’t know the academy.” Her eyes flash gold and violet for only a second. “Stop making false assumptions about things you don’t know because you’re _scared_ of the truth.”

“Fuck you,” Soojin says lowly. “I know what the truth is now. There’s nothing you can do to convince me that this wasn’t your plan all along. And you would have done it too if I hadn’t found the evidence. So stop trying to _confuse me_ and _lie_ to me, because I - “

_Trusted you,_ Soojin wants to say. She won’t. 

Because that’s what this all comes down to. Soojin, for the first time in her short, bitter life, had trusted a dragon. Because it had been kind to her. Kinder than most humans that had been in her life. Because it had protected her, even when she ran away. Because it talked to her, not as though she was below it or lesser, but like an equal. And this betrayal stung painfully, because for the first time, Soojin had trusted a dragon, and it had been no different from the rest. 

“I hope it was worth it,” she finally mutters when there was no reply from the dragon. Soojin kind of feels like she’s about to cry. “I hope the girl before me put up a fight,” she says, voice dangerously wobbly. “Before she…”

Shuhua starts forward, and Soojin leaps back, scrambling over herself until her back is pressed against the far wall. She closes her eyes and braces herself. “Just do it already,” she pleads, voice breaking. Soojin doesn’t possess the will to fight anymore. “Stop playing around with me.”

“Soojin…” Shuhua trails off, slowly blinking. She makes a soft sound in the back of her throat, almost pitying. Soojin’s eyes don’t open. 

“I didn’t.... Shuhua isn’t - “

Her eyes flash open as the sound of helicopters fill the air. Safety. Soojin jolts back into the present, pushing herself off of the wall and around the dazed dragon. The cave was still open, somehow. Shuhua must have forgotten to close it. Soojin can even see the helicopters flying through the air. Three of them to be exact, all outfitted with guns. Soojin grins wide. “Over here!” She tries to scream into the wind, hoping it travels far enough to be heard. “Help,” she calls again, “it’s me, it’s - “

Shuhua sends her flying away from the entrance of the cave with one giant swipe of her tail with a rumble. Soojin slams into the wall hard enough for the breath to leave her lungs, sliding a painful ten feet down the cave wall from the sheer force of the blow. She coughs, getting up onto her hands and knees shakily, but Shuhua growls and pushes her back down, Soojin’s cheek connecting with the stone harshly. “Stay,” she grunts, leaving Soojin to prowl the cave’s entrance, sparing only a glance before leaving. The stone rolls back into place. 

The cave is back to being dimly lit by the light of the dying fire, and she shudders. Soojin slowly regains her senses, absentmindedly rubbing at the back of her head. A small bump has risen from where she slammed into the wall, and she winces at the sensation of her hands on it. Outside, there’s vague sounds of gunfire and screaming, all succeeded by an angry dragon's roar. 

She stands up slowly, hazily, heaving herself up with a pained wince, checking for broken bones. Strangely, there are none - if Shuhua had wished, she could have crushed her, easily too, and yet there Soojin was, miraculously unharmed except for maybe a bruise on her cheek. She hurries to the cave’s entrance, pressing her ear against the stone curiously. 

The dragon’s roaring from before has ceased, and Soojin’s heart leaps. Maybe it was over already? She could even hear people speaking outside the cave, shifting around just beyond the boulder. Soojin presses in even closer and listens.

_“Where do you think the dragon went?”_

_“Who knows.” A laugh. “It’s probably trying to figure out how to take down four helicopters as we speak.”_

_“This is the cave, though. For sure. You think…”_

_“What?”_

_“You think the Seo girl is really in here?”_

This should be Soojin’s cue. She should say something, tell them she’s in here and she needs help. But something tells her to wait.

_“That’s what Naeun said,”_ the other voice replies. _“Doesn’t really matter. Let’s blast this rock and open it up.”_

_“If we do, and she’s in here, then she’ll get trapped and buried alive.”_

_“Well, you heard what Naeun said. Dead or alive. It doesn’t matter what happens now, because she’ll die either way.”_

Soojin claps her hands over her mouth, eyes going wide. Her blood runs cold. It couldn’t be right. What they were saying just _couldn’t._ Naeun… wouldn’t say something like that, not about her.

_“You think the dragon ate her already?”_

_“Naeun seemed convinced it wouldn’t. Bet on it, even.”_

A humming noise. _“Okay, let’s do it. Two birds, one stone.”_

_“Maybe if we’re lucky, this’ll take care of Seo too, so we don’t have to.”_

The voices stop, and Soojin slowly backs away from the wall. She stumbles backwards, falling onto the stone, dangerously close to her hair being singed by the dying fire. Shuhua was right. This whole time. The academy wanted her dead, and now the dragon was out there trying to protect her. After everything she said, it was still defending her. Something heavy thumps outside the cave, and she winces. They’ll really do it, she realizes. They’ll blow this whole cave up, with her inside it. She slowly stands, steadying herself on the wall as her heart thumps, already struggling to breathe. 

Soojin knows of a few terrible ways to die. Has seen them herself, in fact. Suffocating in rubble is high on her personal list, only preempted by dying to a dragon. For a moment she returns to the ruins of Busan, huddled into a small space between two fallen concrete slabs, afraid to breath lest her movements cause the entire pile of rubble to crumble atop of her. 

That within itself had been terrible; even worse was the air. Thick, grimy, it had burned in her lungs and stung with every exhale. Acrid and stifling, it had been everywhere. Soojin had begun to wonder back then if she would die from being crushed or if the lack of clean oxygen and the overwhelming amount of dust she had inhaled would finally end it. 

She wonders if it would be the same here. Would they let her suffocate? She shudders.

She could hear them pounding against the cave, now, most likely tamping down the explosives. Soojin can do nothing but wait for the end, now. She moves to the back of the cave, slowly sinking to her knees as a memory flashes up, unbridled, of the hospital she had been rushed to that night and the TV playing overhead as the nurses shouted over her body. 

Soojin had always had a strange kind of respect for the news anchors. How could they stay so calm, reporting the countless casualties as videos of dragons ravishing her hometown played on the screen? As pictures of demolished houses and buildings flashed across the display, crying children covered in soot and grime waiting for parents who would never come back playing across the background?

_Get on your hands and knees,_ one of the news anchors had explained while Soojin winced at the feeling of antiseptic cleaning her wounds, _avoid spinal injury by covering your neck with your hands. Try to cover your whole body if possible and use a piece of fabric to cover your mouth and nose to avoid inhaling dust and parts of debris. In the case of becoming trapped or injured in rubble, please remain calm and wait for help to arrive._

A loud click comes from outside and Soojin is promptly snapped out of it, eyes flicking towards the boulder. She’s still too close. If she somehow didn’t get hit by the rubble that would fly around, the sound itself would leave her deaf. And with the added echo of the cave, it would be even louder, until the sound overpowered all her senses and she was blasted back -

Then there’s a loud deafening roar from outside, and Soojin closes her eyes tight, placing her hands over her neck just like she had been told so many years ago. She tenses, expecting the explosion, but nothing ever comes. Instead there’s Shuhua, shaking the ground and drawing screams from outside, shouts and gunfire, and a very angry dragon. She slowly uncurls herself, rising from the ground onto her palms, staring incredulously at the rock that separates her from the outside world. Soojin comes closer, just barely, to listen. It doesn’t matter much - the cave is filled with the sounds of the fight, loud thumps and grunts, sickening crunches. Soojin can’t even tell the sounds of the dragon and the cadets apart anymore, the roar of the helicopters overhead drowning most of the individual voices out.

She doesn’t know how long it takes - maybe minutes, but it feels like several hours.

Then there’s a horrible screeching noise, like nails scraping across metal, a loud boom, and screams. Soojin hears another boom, another, then _another,_ screams melting together to form an entire cacophony of noise that forces her to cover her ears. Finally, there’s… silence. Her head tilts up slowly.

The rock at the entrance shudders, slowly moving aside and flooding the cave with the golden-red light of dusk. Shuhua stands at the mouth of the cave, silhouetted by the sun, and Soojin starts forward before her eyes adjust.

“Oh, no,” she gasps when she sees it, and Shuhua promptly collapses. The dragon breathes heavily, raspily, her body littered with lacerations and cuts of all shapes and sizes, the rise and fall of her chest unsteady and uneven. Soojin’s heart jumps into her throat and she runs forward. Her wings are torn in some places, but they couldn’t even compare to her numerous scales missing or cut through. Worst of all, her belly steadily pours out blood into the desert sand, a spear or harpoon of some sort tearing straight through hard scale and into soft skin. A few bullets stick into Shuhua’s sides.

“Shuhua,” she says, eyes scanning over her once more. She doesn’t know what to do, and the dragon isn’t exactly in the state to help her figure this out. 

She doesn’t get the chance to finish whatever she was going to say, however. Shuhua flops over, her underbelly exposed to the air. The dragon gives a little bitter chuckle. “Well,” she says, eyes staring upwards, “this is your chance, isn’t it?”

“What?” Soojin whispers, eyes wide. 

“You said… you wished you had killed me when you had the chance. This is it, isn’t it? You can end it all here.” Shuhua heaves in shakily, eyes closing. “That’s what you wanted.”

“No,” Soojin cries, shaking the dragon awake. “I understand now. That you were trying to protect me. I heard the cadets.”

“Do you, now?” Shuhua almost seems… amused by this turn of events. 

“So, I…” Soojin bites her lip. “I’m not going to kill you, Shuhua. I… owe you.”

The dragon just hums. Soojin returns to the back of the cave for her old clothes, ripping them up so she can bandage Shuhua’s various wounds. They don’t have anything big enough for a dragon, but she hopes it can be enough until they find something else. Soojin kneels beside the dragon, carefully approaching Shuhua so as to not startle her. It’s silent for a few moments as they sit there, Soojin’s hands gliding over Shuhua carefully. “Am I hurting you?” She finally asks.

“Not anymore than I’m already hurting,” comes the reply. She furrows her eyebrows, and Shuhua makes an amuse noise above her. She whips her head around to face the smiling dragon. “What?”

“Cute.”

Soojin’s jaw drops. She’s speechless for a few seconds before she’s swatting at the dragon’s neck (she takes care to not hit any injured areas). “Stop making fun of me,” she whines, tightening the cloth around the dragon’s midsection, “I’m trying to help you for once.”

“No, I’m not - “

Suddenly, Shuhua is pushing her aside gently and rolling over with a pained grunt. Soojin puts her hands out to stop her, but Shuhua shoots her a look that tells her to stay. “What are you doing,” she hisses, “you’re going to hurt yourself even more.” 

“We don’t have any more time,” Shuhua gasps as she struggles to get up. Soojin anxiously watches, reaching her hands out as though she can steady the dragon. “Shuhua,” she warns, “you should really stay still. I’m serious.”

“Can’t,” Shuhua replies urgently. “There’s more coming.”

Her heart sinks. “Oh,” she breathes, “and this time, they’ll bring even more reinforcements…fuck.”

Shuhua nods grimly, finally raising herself from the ground unsteadily. Soojin’s heart hurts. It looks so… painful. The dragon is still breathing unevenly, blood seeping through the fabric around her wounds already. She places a hand on Shuhua’s lowered muzzle. “You can’t go anywhere like this,” she says, sad. 

“No,” Shuhua insists, wobbling like she’s on the verge of collapsing, “I need to get you out of here before they...”

“You can’t fly like this,” Soojin says, putting her other hand on the side of Shuhua’s jaw. “If you try - I don’t even know if you can fly - “

“Let’s try, then. It’s better than waiting here.”

Soojin bites her lip, weighing her options. They really don’t have any other options. They’ve been backed into a corner. “Come on,” Shuhua huffs, smiling through her teeth, “get on my back.”

“What? I can’t - “

“Get on my back.” Shuhua’s tone left little room for disagreement. 

Soojin must take too long, because Shuhua releases a little growl. She throws her hands up. “Okay,” she relents, pushing herself off of the ground and onto the dragon’s back. The scales are a little rough against her skin, but it’s not unbearable. Shuhua’s back is too broad for her to comfortably ride, so she moves up until she’s at the junction of the dragon’s neck and back, tightly wrapping her arms around Shuhua’s neck, fitting her neck into the space there. 

Shuhua fully stands up and Soojin squeaks, wrapping her legs around her tightly. “Oh my god,” she exclaims, “we’re both going to die.”

“Nah,” Shuhua says, her tattered wings extending, “we’ll only die if we stay here.”

Soojin just sighs and holds on even tighter.

Shuhua limps out of the cave, one step after another. Every odd step she’ll grunt or hiss out her discomfort, but she voices no complaints. Soojin gets her first glance of the aftermath of the battle - there’s four helicopters scattered across the desert, set afire by the impact of their falls. Bodies are strewn everywhere, each wearing the academy’s insignia, and Soojin’s heart aches. The air smells like smoke and ash. Soojin buries her face in Shuhua’s neck, refusing to look at it anymore. She doesn’t know how to feel anymore.

“If I hadn’t been forced to do it, I wouldn’t have,” Shuhua murmurs. “Please believe that, at least.” 

Soojin closes her eyes. “We should go.”

Shuhua leaps off the ground into the darkening sky.

…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as always, thank you for reading and enjoying, and leave kudos and comments if you enjoyed. you can always find me on twitter @prodyeo, and my cc is itgirlsoojin for any inquiries or comments!

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading! i know this chapter may seem a little short but i'm trying a new way of posting multichaptered fics. this is my first big fic project for idle and i'm very excited to share it! the final fic should be around 40-60k but i haven't completely finished it yet. updates will be weekly on sunday 8-9 est. again, thank you for reading, and please leave comments and kudos if you enjoyed. they are my motivation, even if i don't get to reply to all of them.
> 
> curious cat: https://curiouscat.me/itgirlsoojin
> 
> twitter:   
> https://mobile.twitter.com/yeosangflvr


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